Systems Thinking: A Lens and Scalpel for Organizational Learning (original) (raw)
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puntOorg international Journal
The biggest challenge for today's organisations is to address the growing complexity of their internal and external environment while gaining a competitive advantage. To do this, the leaders of the organisations must be able to understand this complexity through the knowledge of the environment and the implementation of a governance system based on a decision-making process that considers the enormous amount of data available. Such data must lead to the availability of information that guides the organisations themselves in the learning process. Sustainable development requires organisations to rethink their goals and/or business models, with effects on their day-today activities. Pursuing to become more sustainable is not only a need for marketing reasons but also an opportunity for growth and alignment with emerging trends. However, managing the complexity of sustainability is not straightforward and requires cognitive and practical tools that are able to capture and jointly consider a wide variety of interrelated factors. Modelling the processes that characterise complex organisations is not an easy task. The aim of this contribution is thus to identify a methodology that helps managers in tackling the challenges that organisations have to adopt when faced with a growing complexity of their internal and external environment, and that might help managers at all levels when analysing various business and management situations, to account for non-linearities, path-dependency and time lags, and that may allow also for organisational and social learning. The System Thinking and System Dynamics approach may prove a useful combined tool for next-generation decision-makers, but this approach needs to be understood and learned in order to develop the necessary skills. In particular, this study will show the results of a test conducted with the collaboration of undergraduate university students, who have attended a course about System Dynamics, in order to test their ability to understand the dynamics underlying counterintuitive system behaviour.
1994
I believe we should give students a more effective way of interpreting the world around them. They should gain a greater and well-founded confidence for managing their lives and the situations they encouter. The objectives of a system dynamics education might be grouped under three headings: 1. Developing personal skills, 2. Shaping an outlook and personality to fit the 21 st century, and 3. Understanding the nature of systems in which we work and live. A system dynamics education should instill a personal philosophy that is consistent with the complex world in which we live.
Complexity and Systems Thinking Models in Education: Applications for Leaders
Learning, Design, and Technology, 2019
Based on another chapter in this volume titled “What is Systems Thinking?”, this chapter discusses the application of systems thinking models in education that are informed by complexity science – focusing in particular on the significance of complex adaptive systems (CAS) as conceptual frameworks for both cognition and human organization. It introduces five frameworks that are useful individually but also operate as an ecology of models, tools, and frameworks. Each is based on CAS principles. The first model (systems thinking) identifies simple rules for the emergence of cognition, metacognition, and systems thinking. These rules, or “building blocks,” are distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives (DSRP). A second model or tool (systems mapping) provides a corollary for teaching applied systems thinking/DSRP. A third pedagogical model known as Map Activate Check or MAC utilizes systems thinking and mapping to frame any given lesson, to inform the activities or activation of the concepts in the map, and to check that they have been learned. This chapter further recognizes that the acts of learning and teaching occur in the context of a variety of overlapping human systems. Complexity science provides both insight into these systems and examples to better understand and design integrated learning environments. The fourth model, systems leadership, is an organizational model comprised of four CAS-based functions of organizations – vision, mission, capacity, and learning (VMCL). These four functions explicate the simple rules for designing and leading organizations that function optimally by continuously learning and leveraging complexity. Finally, a fifth model, called a culture-building graph (CBG), offers guidance for leadership to implement change within any group, irrespective of its formal organization. The CBG is a network theory-informed approach to inculcate change across organizations of any size or composition. These five systems models applied individually or in combination provide school teachers and administrators with an ecology of tools to leverage systems and complexity and to increase success in educational efforts from the classroom to district-wide initiatives.
Systems thinking is one of the key paradigm for organizational learning. This paper investigates the essence of organizational learning, offers assessment criteria to determine when learning comes into effect, and postulates the requisites for successful organizational learning based on systems thinking. Systems thinking is an inquiry-based learning that uses the technique of sharing perspective, fosters holistic thinking, and engages in mental method-testing.
Systems Theory and Systems Approach to Leadership
ILIRIA International Review, 2014
Systems theory is product of the efforts of many researchers to create an intermediate field of coexistence of all sciences. If not for anything else, because of the magnitude that the use of systemic thinking and systemic approach has taken, it has become undisputed among the theories. Systems theory not only provides a glossary of terms with which researchers from different fields can be understood, but provides a framework for the presentation and interpretation of phenomena and realities. This paper addresses a systematic approach to leadership, as an attempt to dredge leadership and systems theory literature to find the meeting point. Systems approach is not an approach to leadership in terms of a manner of leader’s work, but it’s the leader's determination to factorize in his leadership the external environment and relationships with and among elements. Leader without followers is unable to exercise his leadership and to ensure their conviction he should provide a system, ...
Revisiting the roots of learning organization
The Learning Organization, 2005
Purpose-This paper aims to provide a literature synthesis of the learning organization and discuss several pertinent theoretical concepts on the subject. Design/methodology/approach-A range of works mainly from 1990-2004, which aim at providing a variety of perspectives on the learning organization, have been analyzed and discussed based on its theoretical roots and ontological perspectives. Findings-The synthesis of the literature reveals several common themes from the various learning organization definitions and discovers the greater significance of systems thinking in Senge's five disciplines. Research limitations/implications-It is not an exhaustive coverage of the learning organization literature. However it offers great research implications where several key concepts can be further explored. For example, is systems thinking really crucial to organizational learning? Practical implications-Practitioners may find the analysis of the various models in relation to Senge's five disciplines useful, as there are concepts that can be implemented in practice. Originality/value-It is the amalgamation of several key concepts in the learning organization and the analysis of these concepts in relation to The Fifth Discipline which readers will be familiar and able to identify with. People who are interested in pursuing research in the learning organization will find this paper handy as it provides a useful overview of the subject.
UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONS: THE DOMINANCE OF SYSTEMS THEORY
Systems theory has served us well and will continue to provide managers and students of organisations with metaphors, terminology and explanations about how organisations function. Systems theory has, in fact, dominated as a framework for managerial behaviour and organisational analysis. However, there are some emerging theories and perspectives that are starting to challenge some of the tenets of the dominant systems principles.
New Paradigm of Systems Thinking
Accepting new paradigms are important to advancing scientific knowledge. Over the history of humanity, discoveries have been made because of the availability of new facts that would be either previously impossible or improbable for multiple reasons. However, whenever one contextualizes the importance of leadership within the contemporary period of existence, one would find it difficult to diminish its contribution. Leadership makes or breaks organizations. Therefore, every facets of leadership should be scrutinized carefully; styles, types, reasons, and rewards, so that effective leadership can be appropriately placed and applied. Such broad perspectives may require further assistance because of missing links or incomprehensible relationships. If such is the case, one may be required to broaden one's horizon by examining existing facts in new ways. The foregoing is a scrutiny of the broader perspectives of paradigms and situating leadership appropriately within that massive scientific discourse.